L'ORIGINAL depuis 2002

Entries from July 2007

How to spread out, or "étaler" a bulldozed building...with grace and artistry in today's story.

étaler (ay-tal-ay) verb to spread, to spread out, to display, to lay out to put on, smooth on to spread out (payments) to parade, to flaunt, to show off

Ne ronge pas ton frein, ce que tu as sur le coeur, dis-le. Tu verras qu'un secret étalé au soleil rétrécit à vue d'oeil. Don't chomp at the bit, whatever is on your heart, say it. You will see that a secret, once spread out under the sun, will shrink before the eye.--Yves Thériault.

"I should get him something to drink," I say."No, leave him," Jean-Marc insists.I drop my hand, an ever ready sun visor, and look at my watch: Nine thirty-five. The "thirsty man" has been working, non-stop, for three hours.

Across the jagged ground, I spot Monsieur Delhome who has left his vegetable patch to watch the noisy spectacle.* Monsieur has had an eyeful since we began the tearing down and building up of this farmhouse. There was the roofer, sacré* Michel, whose uniform was no more than an itsy bitsy Speedo. "Il a fait du bon travail!" He did a great job! Monsieur tells me. I suppose Michel was quick on his feet without all that cloth to get in the way. Surely he had safety in mind (and sun-kissed skin). With a two-in-one goal, and twinkle toes, Michel had a section of our roof tiled in under 10 days and for a third of the price quoted by the big guys.

As to those "big guys," Monsieur Delhome has his opinions about les entreprises de maçonnerie* or sociétéssans Speedos: "They'll rob you!" But the independent masons (like Michel and the "thirsty man" whom we are watching) are true craftsmen who won't empty your pocket.

Monsieur and I study the thirsty man, with Monsieur offering an ongoing commentaire* about the beauty of his work."Just watch him!" Monsieur says, in awe.I watch as the pelleteuse* scoops up another load of broken concrete and, thanks to its operator, deftly spreads it out across the yard. For the big chunks of concrete, the shovel is turned on its belly to crush the béton* to smithereens.

"What grace!" Monsieur Delhome observes."Yes, but... he must be thirsty...""He won't stop now. He's on a roll. Just look at him!"I do as my neighbor instructs me to, and appreciate the elegance in one man's efforts. But it is Monsieur Delhome who truly understands the talent behind the tapering out of concrete piles."C'est un artiste!" he declares.

The artist's paintbrush is a twenty-two ton pelleteuse. His canvas is the stretch of uneven earth to the side of our farmhouse. Where once piles of concrete were stored (after the demolition of part of the farmhouse) now a creek rolls gently by, no longer hidden by a wall of rubble.

With Monsieur Delhome's nine decades of experience, and in his sharing, I can now see the artist behind the engine. I pause to consider the art appreciator standing beside me who seems to share an artist's sensibility: both require vision and the ability to see beauty in what some consider banal.

................................................................Shop--and help support this word journal!:Etalable! (spreadable!) The French love crème de marrons, on toast or all alone. Chestnut spread from the Ardeche region.

Ongoing support from readers like you helps me to continue doing what I love most: sharing vocabulary and cultural insights via these personal stories from France. Your contribution is vivement apprécié! Donating via PayPal is easy when you use the links below. Merci infiniment! Kristi♥ Send $10♥ Send $25♥Send the amount of your choice

"Bonjour, Kristin, I have enjoyed your blog now for a great number of years, watching your children grow up, your moves from house to house, enjoying your stories and photos and your development as a writer. It's way past time for me to say MERCI with a donation to your blog...which I've done today. Bien amicalement!"--Gabrielle

Allonger, it is as good a verb as any to represent the ensemble of words in the coming paragraphs, whatever they may be, and to give this anecdotal billet* a needed theme, however glib and on a spree.

Enough dilly-dallying. Our warm-up paragraph has served its purpose. Time now to enter our story, which is already underway as you will soon see by turning your attention over there, to the Cécilien* curb on which tables of books, in French and English (mostly français*) and colorful racks of cartes postales* turn quickly or slowly according to a tourist's whim.

Beyond the books and postcards the scene opens up onto a stone shopfront (just beside the restaurant "Angelus" where we dined on pizza and banana "spleets" a few weeks back). Below a painted enseigne* which reads "Feuilles des Vignes,"* rests a small iron table the color of réglisse* as it melts on the tongue. There, beside the melt-in-your-mouth table, two iron chairs, sweet as their heart-shaped "dos,"* are occupied.

The woman with the black waist-length ponytail is filling out a form that reads dépôt-vente.* The writer seated beside her is wondering whether she will return to collect the money (should her book sell). She has "deposited" books in librairies* before (in Aix, in Lorgues...) only to be seized, she the writer, byan unfounded phobia of returning to the shop to collect either books or earnings. "This time is different," she tells herself. "Those books were issued from Four Frogs Press.* This book is from a maison d'édition New Yorkaise.*" The writer is not convinced that this last detail has cured her cowardice.

A woman rides up on an old-fashioned bike, wicker panier* hooked to the handlebar. "I don't have any tomatoes for you today, ma belle,*" she apologizes, bending down to kiss the shop owner. "Je vous fais la bise aussi,"* says the woman on wheels, planting three kisses on my cheeks (left, right, left). I feellike I did back in tenth grade when, new at Chaparral High School, one of the "freaks" (as opposed to "jocks"), who wore a hip-hugging belt with menacing spikes, welcomed me into her tribe (she liked the zigzags ironed into my straight hair. Years later, my muse with the spiked belt--which matched her rock-n-roll locks--ended up dancing on tables for cash and I, writing on them).

I look over to the bookstore owner, who is coquette in a flowing knee-length skirt, one as whimsical as its motif: great black polka dots on white. "Don't worry about it," she is saying. As the lady-sans-légumes* pedals off, the shop owner informs me that she'll pick up a few tomatoes from her father'spotager,* near the Aigues river. I mention that, coincidentally, my home is near a such a potager. Before long it is understood that the shop owner lives in the house across the field from me.

More customers file past us. A man and his son inquire about "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" only to learn that the last three copies flew out of the store yesterday.

"I should go," I say, swirling the coffee (a café allongé,* I might finally add) in the plastic cup before me. I stand up to leave. Remembering my drop-n-run track record, I am not sure if I will ever see the bookstore owner again.

"Écoutez,"* she replies, solving an unspoken problem. "When these books have sold, I'll stop by your place on my way home and give you your cut."

That settles that. With one great stone kicked out of my path, I can go back to dreaming about books that fly (out of store windows), and to the writing of them. So far I haven't had to dance on tables and, in the meantime, I hope to keep this writing gig.

Ongoing support from readers like you helps me to continue doing what I love most: sharing vocabulary and cultural insights via these personal stories from France. Your contribution is vivement apprécié! Donating via PayPal is easy when you use the links below. Merci infiniment! Kristi♥ Send $10♥ Send $25♥Send the amount of your choice

"Bonjour, Kristin, I have enjoyed your blog now for a great number of years, watching your children grow up, your moves from house to house, enjoying your stories and photos and your development as a writer. It's way past time for me to say MERCI with a donation to your blog...which I've done today. Bien amicalement!"--Gabrielle

oeuvre (uh-vruh) noun, feminine 1. work 2. task 3. deed 4. ("oeuvre" is also a masculine noun and refers to the complete "works" of an artist; "oeuvre," masculine, is also used in construction lingo such as "second oeuvre" (finishings)

La vie d'un artiste, c'est son oeuvre.The life of an artist is his work. --Jérôme Garcin.

How to distill thirty-six hours with an artist into one tidy vignette? The task is daunting and I sit here staring at a blank screen as the artist herself must stare at her canvas.

For starters, I could do as the artist would by tossing out convention. Ouf.* Freedom! Next, I might sketch a few initial impressions...add a bold stroke of color, step back from my easel, and tilt my head. Hmmm. I return to my palette, swirl my paintbrush into a puddle of Prussian blue and, in the meantime, off we jump into this anti-essay via a series of scattered thoughts and impressions.

Seated in a wicker chair, a row of bee-spotted lavender beside me, I peer into Tessa Baker's atelier, past the painted green shutters, over the tomette* tiled floor, and spy the English artist who is singing "Suzanne" by Leonard Cohen:

"...And she shows you where to lookAmong the garbage and the flowers..."

...on the easel, a rectangular canvas receives an inspired stroke...in the air the smell of turpentine is thick enough to taste.

Here, on an ancient flower farm where chatty chickens ("Queenie" and "Firelighter") are home on the range, a charcoal cat named Cabas* (kah-ba) warms to me via a purr and a proie.* Oh, là là!

"Is it a "gift?" I ask my hostess, of the field mouse that Cabas the cat has dropped beside my bed. "Oh, dear. It is!" she apologizes.

In the kitchen I steal past the artist, a stiff souris* in my hand, on my way to its swift burial. "Rigor mortis," Tess shudders, before honoring the maman* in me. "Only a mother could do that," she says of such brazen mouse maneuvering. I puff up with pride as Cabas did when she presented her catch.

On the terrace, shaded by an honorable linden tree, I listen to the eclectic island beat of a bamboo chime. The breakfast table is set with pottery, linen, and pearl-handled spoons. "We'll have napkin rings!" the artist says. "What color would you like?""Orange!""And I shall have pink!" the artist decides.The napkin rings slide on, then off, as we settle in to a petit déjeuner* of farm fresh eggs "à la coque"* and buttery "toast fingers," breakfasting with the abandon of giglets at a tea party.

I ask if I might clean the henhouse so as to learn about coop logistics (and to leave my hostess a pocket of free time in which to paint or putter). I wheel the barrel to the poulailler,* hunch down into the hutch, gather the straw and droppings with a shovel. When the shovel becomes chiante,* I give up and use my hands... Pouah!* I soon learn that poules* leave presents, just as purry cats do, when Queenie struts up and lays the third egg of the day in thanks for her fresh "sheets".

This canvas is running out of room and we've yet to sketch the voiturette,* VaVa,* and the vêtements* aisle at Intermarché where the artist's words "It brings out the gypsy in you!" have me twirling round and round in a supermarket skirt. Catching the enthusiasm, the quiet French woman next to us selects a frilly jupe,* ignores the portable dressing room, and joins us twirlers who've given haute couture a haughty hee-haw!

As an artist leaves her canvas, so shall I leave this composition: abstract and incomplete, for the viewer to interpret as s/he pleases.

Terms & Expressions:faire oeuvre utile = to do something worthwhile or usefulmettre quelqu'un à l'oeuvre = to put someone to workse mettre à l'oeuvre = to get down to workfaire de bonnes oeuvres = to do charitable, social, work

Ongoing support from readers like you helps me to continue doing what I love most: sharing vocabulary and cultural insights via these personal stories from France. Your contribution is vivement apprécié! Donating via PayPal is easy when you use the links below. Merci infiniment! Kristi♥ Send $10♥ Send $25♥Send the amount of your choice

"Bonjour, Kristin, I have enjoyed your blog now for a great number of years, watching your children grow up, your moves from house to house, enjoying your stories and photos and your development as a writer. It's way past time for me to say MERCI with a donation to your blog...which I've done today. Bien amicalement!"--Gabrielle

There isn't a lot of time for a story today but one can always make room for a word (or two, or three!) such as "gueule-de-loup."*

Gueule-de-loup, for the yellow-as-corn flowers, no bigger than petits pois,* that grow in crowded bunches along the river Aigues just across the field of vines beyond this French window.

Gueule-de-loup for the funny faced flora, "dragon's mouth" to some, so small they might have continued, incognito, to enjoy their midsummer day, buttery faces pointed toward the sun.

Gueule-de-loup for the chatting and memories that the tongue-poking plants incite..."Do you know what we call them?" My aunt-in-law asks, plucking up a specimen from the rocky river bank."No.""Gueule-de-loup.""Mmm. I think we call them snapdragons back home."

While aunt Marie-Françoise demonstrates their bratty-when-bent behavior (for what living thing enjoys having its mouth pried open via an intrusive pinch at the "jaw"?) I watch as the flower's pointy "tongue" pops out. What memories the gesture brings...

The flower fades from my vision, replaced now by a flower-lined path where my mother's garden is bright with marigolds, pansies, petunias, and snapdragons. On my way to the desert wash to pick wildflowers I pause, sink to my scraped seven-year-old knees, and give the jealous "dragons" a reassuring pinch. "No hard feelings?" I inquire. The jealous flowers drop their petal-jaws to respond with a pointed tongue-lashing.

Ongoing support from readers like you helps me to continue doing what I love most: sharing vocabulary and cultural insights via these personal stories from France. Your contribution is vivement apprécié! Donating via PayPal is easy when you use the links below. Merci infiniment! Kristi♥ Send $10♥ Send $25♥Send the amount of your choice

"Bonjour, Kristin, I have enjoyed your blog now for a great number of years, watching your children grow up, your moves from house to house, enjoying your stories and photos and your development as a writer. It's way past time for me to say MERCI with a donation to your blog...which I've done today. Bien amicalement!"--Gabrielle

After 30 years in the computer software industry, Michelle and Paul Caffrey relinquished their careers determined to reinvent themselves. The fifty-something couple sacrificed everything they owned to buy a converted 1906 Dutch barge. Click here for more about their French adventure.

le robinet (ro-bee-nay) noun, masculine tap, faucet

La créativité, ça ne s'ouvre pas comme un robinet, il faut l'humeur adéquate. You can't just turn on creativity like a faucet. You have to be in the right mood. --from Bill Watterson's comic book "Calvin and Hobbes"

The dialogue, from which this quote was taken, continues: Hobbes: "What kind of mood is that?" Calvin: "Last-minute panic.".

Arriving in Avignon, I notice the colorful wooden péniches* lined up "à la queue leu leu"* along the Rhône river. Jean-Marc and I may be on the scenic route, but we are not in France's windy city to see the pont,* or even the Pope's Palace, we are in Avignon for plumbing purposes. And we are plumb lost.

At a stoplight my husband drives over a concrete lane divider and, presto, we join north-bound traffic. I try not to complain about the roller coaster ride when I can't be of much help with the directions. Before long we are in an industrial zone, pulling into the parking lot of a home improvement store. I reach up to the dashboard and take the contractor's estimate sheet where items are listed and priced--items the plumber will choose for us unless we intervene. Intervening we go...

The sales lady, Corinne, stands two heads above me in her spiked heels and tall hair the ends of which mingle with the plunging neckline of her frilly form-fitting frock. It will be Corinne's job to turn my request for "something simple" into something concrete. She wastes no time.

"Simple," she says, "ça ne veut rien dire."* I appreciate her hiding any impatience that she must feel in assisting clueless clients like me. Bon,* specificity is needed. Did I want modern? Classic?

I notice a "retro" theme in one of the displays. The water taps, with their four-prong handles and porcelain tops, read "chaud" and "froid" and are as charming as the delicate scalloped vasque* beneath them. On display alongside the sink is one of those old-fashioned French toilets where the water tank islocated high up above the bowl; to flush the toilet one pulls on a chain. (The French still use the expression " 'tirer' la chasse"* though most modern day toilets require a push and not a "pull".)

I study the retro toilet. What character! How fitting for a farmhouse. With Jean-Marc's approval I believe we are about to tick two items off our shopping list. Then we notice the tiny price sticker in the base of the vasque: "778 euros." I take out our estimate sheet to verify our budget for the powder room sink: "120 euros." Chérot.* It must be those scallops.

When I mention that the retro line doesn't match our current budget, Corinne, with the clack-clack-clack of her high-heels, tactfully whisks us to the recesses of the store where she is no longer uttering a one-syllabled stylistic sales pitch ("chrome," "mode,"* "chic") but using phrases like "bon rapport qualité prix"* terms that suddenly sing to the word-lover (and wallet-watcher) in me.

Ongoing support from readers like you helps me to continue doing what I love most: sharing vocabulary and cultural insights via these personal stories from France. Your contribution is vivement apprécié! Donating via PayPal is easy when you use the links below. Merci infiniment! Kristi♥ Send $10♥ Send $25♥Send the amount of your choice

"Bonjour, Kristin, I have enjoyed your blog now for a great number of years, watching your children grow up, your moves from house to house, enjoying your stories and photos and your development as a writer. It's way past time for me to say MERCI with a donation to your blog...which I've done today. Bien amicalement!"--Gabrielle

déboucher (day-boo-shay) verb 1. to unblock 2. to uncork, to open 3. to lead to

Le manque d'amour du prochain ne peut déboucher que sur une société d'égoïsme et de désespoir. The absence of love for one's neighbor can only lead to a society of egoism and despair. --Bernadette Chirac.

"Bah! Machines! You've got to use your hands!" Those are the words of Old Man Delhome, who I mistakenly referred to as "Peep" at one point. Oh, Peep exists all right, as does the tobacco "pipe" from which he gets his name. Only Peep isn't Old Man Delhome, but his sometime helper or "bras droit"*; the two used to tend grapes together, beginning the sulfatage* as early as three in the morning. "After which we ate six eggs each. Eggs that would be better if there were a hunk of ham alongside them," Delhome admits. The farm fresh eggs washed down nicely with a glass or two of rosé, which Old Man Delhome drinks in place of water. "Water is too heavy," he complains. "I never drink the stuff."

I am standing by the side of a brook, in my robe, having left my cup of coffee back at the picnic table. Jean-Marc is talking to Old Man Delhome (the father of Monsieur Delhome or "Jean-Marie") who has left his garden and crossed over the brook to meet us at our property line just beneath the massive plane tree. I study Delhome's sunkissed 90-year-old face, wondering if rosé is the secret to his good health.

"Thanks for your help with the tuyau,"* I say, referring to the sewage pipe that burst when Jean-Marc backed over it with his tractor. Mr. Delhome enlightened us a little on the sewage system of our centuries old farmhouse after which Jean-Marc was able to unblock one of the pipes (which had beeninvaded by gnarly roots). As Jean-Marc works the roots free (using a series of rusty iron bars which he has jabbed into the pipe), Old Man Delhome watches, an amused look on his bronzed face.

We leave the broken and blocked pipes and invite Delhome to see the transformations taking place inside the house. "Pierre de Serignan,"* he says, studying the stone wall in the stairwell. This part of the building is older. "We found terre cuite* tiles dated 1696," Jean-Marc adds. "Pas étonnant,"*Delhome mutters. "They began building these types of buildings in the 17th century after those brigands* emptied the little cabanons* of tools, wine...even cochons!"*

Old Man Delhome, having referred to our home as a mas,* now calls it a "casbah" ever since one of the previous owners married a Moroccan woman who "wore the pantalons* around here!" I see her touch in the jewel green paint that colors a hollow in the wall where a stone sink once nestled.

We make our way through the casbah. "This is the kitchen," Delhome guesses. "How are you going to heat it?" Jean-Marc mentions floor heating, which sets Delhome's mouth into another one of those amused grins. "Just wait until the Mistral blows open that door. See how well floor heating works then!" Jean-Marc smiles politely to Delhome, who tells us he keeps his fireplace going nuit et jour.*

I point out the iron bar above our front door which the workers uncovered last week. "An 'essieu* de charrette',"* Delhome confirms, identifying it as an axle from an old horse cart. "Ils ne cassaient pas la tête. They didn't rack their brains," he says of the builders of yesteryear who used whatever materials were on hand. "Like those rock walls..." Delhome continues, indicating the pebbles and stones taken from the river-bed and used to build the walls in the last half of the building.

The home tour ends in the cave* which Delhome recognizes as the former "on-gar"*. The dirt floor has been covered and great cement tanks from Italy now line the walls. Delhome wags his hand, impressed.

"Il y a du pognon ici!" A lot of dough here! "It's your American wife," Monsieur continues, assuming I am the "money bags" behind the vineyard project. I do not correct monsieur. Instead, I think about the journey from what some would call "trailer park trash" to "châtelaine"* or "mistress of the château" as my mother-in-law now teases me.

"There are investors," I say, with more self-assurance than I have ever known before. "And bank loans," Jean-Marc adds, his eyes meeting mine with a wink of approval.

Ongoing support from readers like you helps me to continue doing what I love most: sharing vocabulary and cultural insights via these personal stories from France. Your contribution is vivement apprécié! Donating via PayPal is easy when you use the links below. Merci infiniment! Kristi♥ Send $10♥ Send $25♥Send the amount of your choice

"Bonjour, Kristin, I have enjoyed your blog now for a great number of years, watching your children grow up, your moves from house to house, enjoying your stories and photos and your development as a writer. It's way past time for me to say MERCI with a donation to your blog...which I've done today. Bien amicalement!"--Gabrielle

I'm plum out of "picoter" quotes today. Would you accept a "tickle" instead? Read on...

Il ne faut pas lâcher le poisson que l'on a dans la main pour capturer celui qui nous chatouille l'oeil. One mustn't let go of the fish in the hand in order to catch that which tickles the eye. --Massa Makan Diabaté.

:: Static Electricity and a Few "Chestnuts" ::

Set out to renovate a house with your nervy counterpart while living "on site" and sooner or later sparks will fly. Add outer tension to the internal kind and you've got yourself a mouthwatering recipe for one electrifying pie--so mouthwatering, so electric that you might just spit fire! But first you need apreheated four* in which to bake that pie...

"Don't touch the stove!" Jean-Marc shrieks. Was it me or was he being a little touchy when he said that?

I set down the casserole of milk; forget café "au lait"* (and pie, for that matter. It was only a metaphorical pie anyway).

I reach for a vacuum-packed coffee capsule, which I've stored with the others in an old glass candy jar above a miniature armoire. While unscrewing the jar's bakelite lid, I receive another admonition."Don't touch the cafetière!"* Jean-Marc barks. "And stay away from the bread machine!" he snaps.Touchy, touchy, touchy! We've both been a little on edge here at the chantier* but not to the point of putting claims on household items (as in "I'll take the cafetière. You can have the aspirateur"*).

When I hear what can only be described as a French yelp, I look over at Jean-Marc who is poking the bread machine with the tip of his index finger: poke, poke, poke. His forward-backward dancing, which accompanies his poking motion, reminds me of fencing only instead of declaring "Touché!" he yelps once again.

YEOWWW! J'ai reçu le jus!*

Well, he got zapped, something that befalls him often enough. Some are prone to mosquito bites, others are prone to electric shocks (my husband is prone to both).

I unwrap the coffee capsule."Don't touch the coffee machine!" Jean-Marc insists. Only now I realize he isn't being touchy, but FEELY. He's just been zapped again!

I touch the coffee machine anyway, braving one jolt for another. Coffee is needed in order to face our "courant"* problem. Lately, every time we touch an appliance we get zapped. The electric shocks range from little zzzt zzzt picotements* to high voltage volumnizers which leave our hair standing on end.

I sip bitter black coffee while Jean-Marc continues to check the appliances, taking note of which ones are emitting "jus" as he calls it. I myself have received a few zaps and a few volumnizers, but nothing like the châtaigne* that Jean-Marc just got from the bread machine."AIEEEE!" He shrieks, this time clapping his hand over his heart.

* * *

Big-hearted Patrick, our steel-haired electrician with the ponytail, has left his Sunday dinner to make an emergency call at our place. With a hand-held device he checks our appliances and visits the electrical outlets throughout our house.

"Effectivement..."* he says, mumbling something about the parafoudre,* something about "masse"* and something about "terre".* Apparently a surge protector had been "grilled"--overworked and now defective--after all of its sockets were taken up by high powered masonry machines (drills, electric saws...). This, combined with the recent weather--in particular the sky-whitening foudre* we had recently--had made for one fantastic fuite de courant.* The excess, Patrick explained, was being sent back to the ground or "terre" where we were, horror of horrors, picking it back up as human circuit conductors. Patrick unplugged the faulty unit and the problem was solved.

Reading up on electricity, my face is as white as the electric sky was the other night. While the idea of renovating an historic farmhouse may be charming to some, the reality can be "positively" chilling.

Ongoing support from readers like you helps me to continue doing what I love most: sharing vocabulary and cultural insights via these personal stories from France. Your contribution is vivement apprécié! Donating via PayPal is easy when you use the links below. Merci infiniment! Kristi♥ Send $10♥ Send $25♥Send the amount of your choice

"Bonjour, Kristin, I have enjoyed your blog now for a great number of years, watching your children grow up, your moves from house to house, enjoying your stories and photos and your development as a writer. It's way past time for me to say MERCI with a donation to your blog...which I've done today. Bien amicalement!"--Gabrielle

"The time to pick the lavender is now, while it is fresh," Marie-Françoise is saying, as I follow her over to the scented allée* where purple flowers mingle with rosemary in one long row, like juilletistes* motoring toward the sea.

"We'll take a poignée* from the very bottom of the bush...you won't even know they're missing!" Following Marie-Françoise's example, I begin snapping up stems from the base of the lavender buissons* which line our driveway. Jean-Marc's aunt has a tour de main* for herb gathering and before long she has collected enough spiked flowers for my braiding lesson. I hand over the half-dozen stems that I've collected for a bouquet that is now 34 flowers strong. I feel my brows lift in confusion when Marie-Françoise tosses one purple beauty out. "Eh, oui!* We need an odd number," she says, apologetically.

We return to the picnic table where my belle-mère* is peeling aubergines.* "I don't have the patience for weaving," my mother-in-law sighs, adjusting the eye-opening Tahitian print pareo that covers her swimsuit. Ah, but she has the patience to peel all those vegetables which she will soon fry in an orderlyfashion: first the aubergines, then the zucchini, then the red and green peppers...she'll even separate the skins from the boiled tomatoes before adding them to the marmite.* I wonder why all the vegetables can't just be fried together? Therein must lie the secret behind the saveur.*

It will soon be no secret how the French tressent* lavender. First, we pluck off the excess foliage along the tiges.* Next, I watch and listen as Marie-Françoise ties a satin ribbon around the neck of the bouquet, just beneath the flower base. I put my finger on the taut satin, wondering how to help. Marie-Françoise knots the ribbon there, then turns the bouquet upside down.

I have only ever weaved beads through my hair, as a child in Arizona, in turquoise, coral, and silver--colors that inspired the native Indians. I liked the coral of Sedona, the blue of Navajo turquoise jewelry, and, of course, the silver in that lining along an eastern cloud that would lead me to France. I hadnot yet considered lavender and the fields of Provence, didn't yet know that one flower's essence would match my very own. Meanwhile France was budding within me, there in a mobile home park along the edge of the Mojave desert.

Near the Drôme, far from the desert, Marie-Françoise tells me that what we have here is "lavandin," that lavender is rare. But lavandin smells just as good, so good that trapping its essence is our enterprise of the hour. Marie-Françoise explains that she is about to create "une bouteille de lavande"*--which, mind you, isn't a bouteille at all, but bottle shaped. "More like a jug or 'amphore',*" my aunt-in-law admits.

She will make the "bottle of lavender" by weaving satin ribbon through the bars of the "cage" that she has formed from the lavender stems (the stems having been bent, one by one, back over the bundle of flowers, interning the lavender like so many sweet-scented prisoners).

Fishing out the longest ribbon, pulling it to the top of the cage, Marie-Françoise begins to weave. As she passes the ribbon through the lavender bars or "spokes" she explains that hand-woven lavender bottles have been used from time immemorial to freshen drawers and armoires. Placing a bundleof lavender in a tiroir* or closet will keep hungry moths and insects at bay. The making of these Provençal pest busters is a tradition chez les soeurs* Espinasse who get together and weave up a lavender storm each summer. "They make great gifts!" my aunt suggests, adding that the woven "bottles" were traditionally given during les fiançailles.*

I notice the relaxed expression on my aunt's face as she weaves. The line of her mouth reflects her smiling eyes: soft, content, free--unlike those sweet-scented prisoners behind the lavender bars.

Ongoing support from readers like you helps me to continue doing what I love most: sharing vocabulary and cultural insights via these personal stories from France. Your contribution is vivement apprécié! Donating via PayPal is easy when you use the links below. Merci infiniment! Kristi♥ Send $10♥ Send $25♥Send the amount of your choice

"Bonjour, Kristin, I have enjoyed your blog now for a great number of years, watching your children grow up, your moves from house to house, enjoying your stories and photos and your development as a writer. It's way past time for me to say MERCI with a donation to your blog...which I've done today. Bien amicalement!"--Gabrielle

"Bécane" is also slang for "motorcycle" and "machine". You can use the noun to designate a computer, a calculator or any machine upon which one works. Oh, the possibilities for employing today's word!

As for today's quote...just between you and moi, "bécane" quotes aren't exactly flooding the reference books that clutter this desk. So how about taking the dreamy quote, below, and exchanging one of its parts? The quote's meaning will stay the same--just replace "machine" with "bécane" for the same effect:

I was folding sun-dried linens at the picnic table when a man in a casquette* called out to me from the front gate. Next to the terra-cotta tiles, stacked in old wooden crates and waiting to be scraped and scrubbed, I recognized our immediate neighbor, Yann. And when I say "immediate" I mean that if I open one of our north facing windows and toss a stick of frozen butter over to the petite brunette (Yann's wife, Daniele) standing at the front door, she'll be able to catch it fastoche* and eventually make that Tarte Tatin for which she had had an inspiration.

"Bonjour, Yann," I said, dropping a lovelorn sock for which no well-meaning Cupid could find a suitable match. Leaving the laundry, I made my way down the crooked cinder block stairs, past a line of unhinged doors, and along a row of potted grappa tomatoes. Careful not to slip again, I stepped over an unwound hose and offered Yann my right hand only to take it back in time to receive three kisses, one per cheek then back again, which is the local custom (as opposed to two kisses or a handshake).

Next, I apologized for the tractor and farm equipment, including a charrue,* pulvérisateur,* and fouloir*--machines that are facing Yann's woven wire fence which separates our properties. While the equipment is parked on our property, just in front of our cellar, it must be a terrible eyesore for Yann and Daniele whose view from the kitchen window once included the lovely vine horizon beyond. I keep pestering Jean-Marc to move the machines, only he reminds me that our masons' bulldozer, flatbed truck, and tractopelle* are already double- and triple-parked at the other end of the yard. "It's nothing," Yann assured me as we returned to the picnic table where I continued my chore. "We are in thistogether!"

What we are "in" together is this circus of living on a chantier.* But the three "rings" at Yann's house are slowly coming down and, looking at our neighbor's neat yard and clean facade with its newly painted shutters, it is hard to imagine any beastly chaos on the other side. I should mention that at one point Yann's house and our own were part of the same homestead. But in the past decade or two the property was divided, sold, then resold when the last two homeowners went either cinglé* (Yann's seller) or sour in marriage (our seller). I hope the work won't get to us like it did the former owners as I don't want togo bananas or bust. Enough said, or my mom, who reads this journal and is keen on the council of Florence Scovel Shinn,* will remind me that my words are my wand! I should be careful about what I say and think lest it--poof!--spring to reality, like a prince-turned-frog, before my very eyes!

Back now to our story where we were talking about machines, one of which Yann casually referred to as "une bécane".*"Bécane, you say? I thought a bécane was a bike.""It is," Yann confirmed. "But you can call just about any man-operated machine a "bécane." For example, you can call a calculator or a computer a bécane.""Really?" I chirped back, feeling the magic of words begin to stir within me.

And that word magic, like a fairy godmother's wand, transported me...until where once a woman stood folding sun-dried laundry...there was now but a puff of fairy dust. Just like that, in the blink of my neighbor's eye, I had run down those cinder block stairs and up several others--over to my own ever humming bécane in time to deliver to you today's word before it went bust from my memory bank, or slipped, as on a banana peel, to fall from my mind for good. But we won't talk about bananas. No, we won't go there.

Ongoing support from readers like you helps me to continue doing what I love most: sharing vocabulary and cultural insights via these personal stories from France. Your contribution is vivement apprécié! Donating via PayPal is easy when you use the links below. Merci infiniment! Kristi♥ Send $10♥ Send $25♥Send the amount of your choice

"Bonjour, Kristin, I have enjoyed your blog now for a great number of years, watching your children grow up, your moves from house to house, enjoying your stories and photos and your development as a writer. It's way past time for me to say MERCI with a donation to your blog...which I've done today. Bien amicalement!"--Gabrielle

The theme of our first week, here at a chantier* that doubles as home, seems to be "casser". In French the verb "casser" means to crack or break. It also means to snap.

I have told you about the walls and windows which were broken, intentionally or not. Add to the dégât* those items that got broken in the move (just a few shelves, a glass or two, and the dial of the tumble-dryer, which isn't an immediate concern as we use the clothesline in summertime.).

Next, there is the breakage that happens while adapting to one's new two-story environment. While hanging out wet towels along a second floor balcony, I heard a crashing sound. Looking down, I saw that my foot had knocked over a small plastic telescope which had been placed just beyond the iron guardrail. "It's nothing," Jean-Marc, the novice stargazer, spoke up from the patio below, making me wonder if the plastic lunette* was another one of those cadeaux gratuits* that he is sometimes offered from the online office supply store (like the baladeur mp3,* the pierrade,* or the barbe à papa machine*).

Too bad they don't offer tractor doors as a gift with purchase, for it was the portière* that broke next (torn clear off its hinges while Jean-Marc was treating his vines. (To verify that the baby plants were not being crushed he had left the tractor door ajar. The door caught on an iron piquet* beforeshattering both the glass and the good intentions of the driver.)

Moving on now from broken things to broken people...if it looks as if Jean-Marc has cracked every bone in his lower body, that is because he is riddled with tendonitis. Last night I fished out his béquilles* which had been packed in a golf caddy during the move. And while there may be a golf course or two in the environs, my husband won't be playing anytime soon--not because of his injuries, but because farmers don't seem to get a day off.

As for me, perhaps all that silent screaming frustration which I am trying to keep intact and internal, finally manifested itself in the form of laryngitis. My voice broke on Friday. Better a voice, than a neck, I reason, thinking about all those plastic tubes each of us continues to trip over: tubes either set outby the workers or tubes of our own that have not been properly stored."WHO keeps leaving the hose out?" I say, having tripped over it for the third time on my way from our bedroom to the kitchen (a voyage in itself, as I've mentioned, for we must leave the building and re-enter it from another location)."Economise ta voix!"* my daughter replies, each time I attempt to say something and only a crackle comes out.

Meantime, Jean-Marc nearly broke a few vocal cords while sharing his own exasperation in one thundering sweep. His lungs had filled to bursting with the toxic gas of injustice--much like the sky above, which broke last night having had its fill of water.

"Not rain!" Jean-Marc pleads. "We need wind. WIND! The vines need a good Mistral to dry them! Give us rain in August," he shouts, as if he were able to change Mother Nature's somber mood. (Mother Nature, who called back her bees last month when they broke free from the hive Jean-Marc had built, and Mother Nature who was filing her nails when all those vine branches broke.)

Because the verb casser also means "to crack," this is a good place to mention the fissure along one of the 10,000 liter cement tanks in the wine cellar. While a crack won't break the tank, it will add to the pile of broken nerves, effectively putting an end to the faux calm that had held us together last week.

Depending on the angle from which I view this picture I can feel anywhere from desperate to hopeful. I will try to see this period as a "breaking in" point, hopefully not too long in duration, lest it leave a few broken spirits in its wake.

Ongoing support from readers like you helps me to continue doing what I love most: sharing vocabulary and cultural insights via these personal stories from France. Your contribution is vivement apprécié! Donating via PayPal is easy when you use the links below. Merci infiniment! Kristi♥ Send $10♥ Send $25♥Send the amount of your choice

"Bonjour, Kristin, I have enjoyed your blog now for a great number of years, watching your children grow up, your moves from house to house, enjoying your stories and photos and your development as a writer. It's way past time for me to say MERCI with a donation to your blog...which I've done today. Bien amicalement!"--Gabrielle

BONJOUR. Je m'appelle Kristi. I write to you weekly from our home in France. Each post is created for maximum French learning. My stories and books are sprinkled with useful vocabulary and provide insights into real French life. Enjoy each quick, educational read--sign up here

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